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i finally added a much needed light bar since it gets dark so soon now. brazed the protector bar onto it, and painted it with women's fingernail polish, seriously. and i finally got to use the liquid electrical tape that JimmieNeutron is always raving about (fyi this stuff really is awesome). oh, and I had to put on some rear view mirrors.

sick of these things corroding and the wires breaking off

anyone have any suggestions for a way to mount some headlights? i also need some suggestions for more accessories.

So, if i'm using trencher 3,8", can i cut it to a shape like that or just leave it like that ?

up to you, i drew the star pattern on my foams and it just seemed like it would have taken too much foam out, that's how i ended up with the gear look. i don't know what the foams are like with the trenchers, but the mudslingers came with big foams that were PACKED in there and really made the tire too stiff for crawling duty.

So, I was sitting here looking at a scaler I built, and wow...why didn't anyone tell me my summit was looking like an overpriced fisher price toy?? Here is my attempt at redemption...

First to get rid of the chincy plastic folder body panels held on by zip ties. I thought of a way to use screws...
Cut little strips of 26 gauge steel
Bend around a piece of rod
Clamp down and it forms around the rod
Drill a hole
And make stuff work around here!

I like this thinner sheet metal, it's a lot lighter and I can cut it with scissors. Now I need to paint the body panels, paint the body panel mount 'tabs', get some more stainless screws to match

Hello forum members! I too have been a "lurker" for close to a year. I am amazed at the wealth of knowledge that is available on this forum. I recieved my Summit in March of this year as a gift and incentive to expand my rehab by just following this awesome machine around. This is my first RC but have had alot of involvment in 1/1 jeeps and trucks over the years. I quit the rock crawling about ten years ago and sold my Jeep. My first exposure to RC rock crawling was at a fundraising event with extreme 1/1 rockcrawlers. There were several kids in attendance that had their RC Crawlers (no Summits) and I was amazed at the obstacles these machines could handle. I started watching videos of all the amazing action and became a huge fan. My wife saw my enthusiasm, researched and purchased this Summit. At first I had doubts that this huge machine could do anything close to what I had been watching on videos. I had never watched any Summit videos or even heard of them. I was totally wrong! She made an excellent well informed choice! And yes, it has truly helped my rehab and am probably as close to my old physical self as I can get!
My Summit has remained stock except I went to an 11 tooth pinion, mudslingers with 18oz of stick on wheel weights on each front wheel. I tweaked the preload a bit to eliminate the rear squat. As the slingers have broken-in and worn some, I feel they out-perform the original tire on the terrain that i like to run. I just love to climb in the rocks and there is plenty here in central Texas.
I too have been inspired by Markman and rizzOd on their cage building skills and have started my own cage. Also converting to a single servo for the steering. Sorry, no pictures yet, but i am taking photos and will post the build a little later.
Thanks for all the shared knowledge and entertaining videos!

Welcome to the forums! Great story and thanks for the kind words. I can't wait to see you put up a build thread. It really is amazing to see how different the summit is from other vehicles...hard to explain it but I think JANG said it best, "You either have a summit, or you don't."

The wrench works well. All my cages i bent from eyeballing too. I drilled holes in my work bench the size of the cage bar. Then when i bend it, i can put a piece in the hole right next to it and match them exact. Works really well! You would be surprised how easy this bar is to work with...

today I finally started my project. made a jig for bending. Got the main hoop bent, decided to try to add some support for the 90 deg bends. (I am using the same 3/16th rod as you are)

So I cleaned the areas to be brazed with sand paper. Open the package to the new torch (BernzOmatic TS8000KC Map-Pro Kit), grab my solder (link to solder), apply flux and start heating. Put torch on joint, flux melted instantly, then tried to put solder, it just balled up and went to the side.

I stopped, let cool, re-clean and try again. This time I got everything bright red, and applyed the solder. still just balls up and goes off to the side. So I decide to try the other side of the hoop. This time i start to heat up the tube away from the joint, watch the flux boil off and apply the solder, it works. But dont know what i did exactly. still cant do the other side.

You're doing it right, just using the wrong stuff. That is not the right kind of solder/flux for this application. What is happening is that the flux you are using cannot withstand the high heat of that torch and gets vaporized before your solder can flow. You must use a high silver content solder with high temp flux. I tried other stuff the first time and it was a no go, same problem you had.

You can use this stuff from home depot, but unfortunately none of my local stores carried it which is why I went with the stuff in my original post that I found on the shelf at my local ace hardware.

Once you get the right flux/solder it's cake. clean the surfaces, apply the high temp flux where you want solder to flow, hit it with the torch until the flux starts to make clear bubbles, apply the solder, and prepare to be amazed . good luck.